ABSTRACT
Epidemiology studies the occurrence, distribution, and determinants of health-related events, states, and processes in specified populations as well as the application of this knowledge in order to control health problems. Descriptive epidemiology relies on having clear and consistently used definitions of the health states of behaviors of interest. Discipline is an important aspect of child rearing all over the world. Corporal punishment can be considered a human rights violation and goes against the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Separating causal and noncausal associations is very hard from studying populations. There are several threats to causal inference that have been well thought out in epidemiology. The chapter utilizes examples from the parenting literature to understand sources of threats to causality and potential approaches minimize the role of such threats which can minimize the problems of invalid casual claims.
